Chaos_String

Regarding the ongoing debate about softcapping with or without RI: I advise to softcap without it. The fact is that with perma-AM, mezzes won't last long, but even a split-second mez will detoggle the power, leaving you well below the softcap. And assuming you survive that, it'll take over 3 seconds to retoggle the power. But then, of course, you'll likely get stunned/slept/held again soon, meaning another 3 seconds of lost DPS, and quite possibly another, and another, and another.

It just isn't the winning way to go. You can softcap without it, and that's what you should do.

Edit: EF may be the more expensive toggle, but losing it mid-fight isn't as big a problem, as it doesn't drop your effective defense and make you more likely to be hit; and it only takes half as long to retoggle. And then of course there's the fact that most AVs don't resist the debuffs at all, making it a lot more endurance-efficient.

It really depends on how quick you are to jump into the group. If they see you coming and aggro before they're inside the aura (usually you can tell because they'll adopt a "Look! A hero!" stance), then they'll attack before you get your defense buff. The same applies if you aggro the spawn with a ranged or AoE power like Hurl or Taunt. But if you get into the spawn quickly enough, the debuff/taunt effects of Invincibility will "wake them up" and in this case you'll have the defense buff before they can attack you.

I'm considering rolling DM/FA in i16, too. Vibrant purple flames with the black DM fx would look pretty cool. Kind of like a Warshade, but on fire.

However, that'll have to take a backseat to revamping my MA/SR's build.

Datalinks appear to be broken.

I played the Broadsword/Shield on that TF (Sterling Pendragon). Entertaining run.

Hi PF.

I have a Fire/Rad which I'd originally intended for PvP, but got the idea to try AV soloing with him. I didn't think very highly of it though, and specced it for PvP again, and now it's collecting dust as PvP is currently such a ridiculous exercise.

I'm presently leveling a sonic/traps corruptor with an eye toward AV soloing ability in the endgame.

But to stay on topic... I'd look at hitting softcaps without RI, and then possibly even dump the power altogether. AVs and GMs resist RI so much that whether it's worth the endurance cost is debatable. Then you get mezzed and have to spend 3 seconds retoggling that one questionable power? Bah. You can floor their to hit chances and cap your own without RI, and that's what I'd do. Skip it.

Make sure you keep EF though, as those debuffs are perfect vs. AVs (and it only takes a second and a half to retoggle), and slot up LR for accuracy and a bigger overlap (i.e. a couple seconds would be lots better than a split second).

Also, Acrobatics protects you from a single hold; with perma-AM and softcapped defense, that should be enough that you'd very rarely get held. It wouldn't help against stuns and sleeps though.

Try to get Hasten and AM permanent if you can. Downtime on AM could lead to a long mez and you want to avoid that.

Also, I'd look at taking a patron pool with a resistance-based shield. Basically any one but Black Scorpion... unless you wanted to softcap S/L instead of ranged, and then fight exclusively S/L enemies. Scorpion Shield would make it very easy to do that.

Re: 87% chance to be hit by GMs? Yikes. It sounds like there was a Quartz emanator at play in that scenario. Since it was an AE mission, were there lieuts in the area?

Since I play a grav/kin controller, I would have liked to see Lift get a damage boost for controllers too, but the fact is that as a controller primary, Gravity already has good single-target damage. While I understand and largely agree that "good" single-target damage doesn't justify or outweigh Grav's AoE control and damage shortcomings, I'm also aware that the set has never been as sub-par for controllers as it has always been for dominators.

For dominators, Gravity has always been borked. While contained Lift and Propel may be viable sources of direct damage for controllers, in the dominator primary they were completely eclipsed by damage powers from the secondaries.

For controllers, particularly solo controllers, Gravity's early access to damaging attacks helps the set to solo well. But Lift and Propel were almost entirely superfluous to a dominator with an entire secondary of superior damage powers.

Therefore dominator Lift was buffed. Now it provides viable direct damage, a bit of soft control, and an alternative damage type to what's offered in the dominator secondaries. In other words, it's as good as Levitate.

But among controllers, Gravity already had more ST damage prior to pets and APPs than any other set besides Mind, so the devs didn't give Lift a damage buff.

Frankly I'd be happy to see controller Gravity buffed in any way; the set needs it, I think. But controller Lift didn't need adjusting the way that dominator Lift did.

The tradeoff of AoE control for ST damage may be a bum deal, but it's especially stupid if the damage you gain is utterly irrelevant and superfluous in light of what you already have. And that was the tradeoff for dominator Grav. And that's why the set got a buff for doms that didn't carry over to controllers.

Fantastic.

Now there's no way I'll ever be able to visit the black market, tailor, or get on a ferry without wading through 34978234 robots jumping over themselves to bubble each other and make clankity clank noises.

Totally awesome.

Yeah, he falls in love with his bow, even at melee range. He's channeling his inner Manticore, which is sad, because he alone among the Praetorians has the potential to be much more dangerous than his Paragon City counterpart.

Anyway grats.

Hey dude: don't look now, but Chimera is a defense-debuffing AV.

His Katana attacks, specifically.

Just a couple quick notes about Phalanx Fighting:

Firstly, if you're solo, you only get the base defense of 3.75% which is NOT enhanceable, so a second slot in the power is wasted. Second, Mids' defaults to the defense value with one target in range, so your actual defense numbers while solo will be 45.6%, 49.3%, and 43.7%.

Therefore, move the second slot from Phalanx Fighting to Battle Agility, and slot the Serendipity: Defense/Recharge, which will put your AoE defense at 45.9%.

If you want, you can fix Mids' to show you the value of Phalanx Fighting with 0 allies in range. Do this by going to Options > Advanced > Database Editor > Main Database Editor > Scrapper Defense > Shield Defense > Phalanx Fighting, and set Power Scaling from 0 to 3 instead of 1 to 3.

Aside from that, my only criticism is that Slice is a pretty good damage cone, and probably ought to be slotted as such; I'd stick Multi-Strikes in there instead of Shield Breakers. This would reduce your Melee defense to 44.3%, but you could either put yourself way over the softcap by throwing in a Parry now and again, or switch the Reactive Armor trike in Deflection to a Serendipity: Def/Rech which would put your Melee defense at 45.2%.

Those things aside, this is a really nice budget build. Kudos.

Short answer: all scrapper pri/sec combinations should do well in normal missions set to unyeilding.

Claws/SR and Fire/Regen should both be up to the task.

Another suggestion: leveling up my Kat/WP with SOs has been loleasy. It's almost as if your green and blue bars are so pegged out that it's impossible for either of them to drop below 100%. Not quite exactly like that, but almost.

For Silverado:

Here is a screenie of my lvl 49 ill/rad standing over the body of a DE monster soloed with no temps, no insps. Made room in my tray for an EOE by deleting, but didn't get the drop.

It's a long fight but not a hard one.

(Edit: it seems I have more to say...)

It bears mentioning that this ill/rad was created back in i8 and soloed his first AVs without temps/insps before inventions even existed, sometime in the mid-30s as far as level is concerned. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that a fire/rad couldn't solo AVs by level 35 with only SO enhancements, but I imagine it would be more difficult than it would be for an ill/rad.

As far as fire/rad being better against multiple AVs, I've found that placement of Phantom Army and luring the AVs into the right spot is key, and with this properly done, decoys hold the aggro just fine. The only drawback is that so much of your damage is coming from pets, it's hard to focus them on just one AV to spike it quickly.

But there are some AVs which I reckon would give a fire/rad much more difficulty than an ill/rad: Ghost Widow for example. Sure, a fire/rad can solo her, but there's a good chance that sooner or later, Ghost Widow will land a Soul Storm, at which point it'll be over. My ill/rad took her down easily in 1 try, and Soul Storm was never an issue.

Anyway, ill/rad could be built for softcapped defense just as easily as any other controller; the reason why nobody does it is that perma-PA > 45% ranged defense.

Ultimately I think it's a little overboard to say that fire/rad is clearly best. It does more damage than ill/rad, sure, I don't dispute that. However, in practice my ill/rad does plenty of damage to beat an AV or GM, and does it with exponentially more safety than any of my other half-dozen AV soloing toons (including a fire/rad corruptor).

The one glaring weakness of Illusion control is the lack of a single-target immobilize, which made it impossible for me to defeat Diabolique without popping a shivan.

But I've defeated every other AV I've matched myself against, and done it very easily and safely, dying maybe twice or three times during several dozen AV and GM fights, in one instance taking down two AVs at once.

And I did all this while leveling, not at lvl 50, and even defeated several of the AVs back in i8, before IO enhancements were available.

That, to my mind, is enough to recommend ill/rad as the equal of any AV-soloing build, and far, far better than most. It blooms early, it's combat-ready versus AVs by level 30, with or without IO enhancements, and you could literally solo dozens of AVs without ever dying to an unlucky break.

Just a QR here:

Those who think that a scrapper's "most important" role is to guard and meatshield teammates need to find a brute or tank instead. They're better at holding aggro. Period.

Those who appreciate a scrapper as a self-sufficient powerhouse who, without need of team support, can accomplish team-sized objectives, at least have the right idea about what scrappers are and aren't good at.

Consider: a /Regen or /SR scrapper (no taunt aura) without Confront or Provoke (which are inferior to the tools available to Tanks and Brutes anyway), relatively light in AoE damage but devastating single-target damage, is much better used in the role of destroying Cysts and freeing Sybills than in the role of playing "poor man's tank" to the squishies and fending off ambushes.

Yep, looks good.

Slot your 2 Obliteration sets in Headsplitter and Shield Charge; slot your Scirocco sets in Slice and Whirling Sword. Slot Membranes in Active Defense if you can afford them. Other than that, it's good to go.

A stone tank, not sure whether he can tank Romulus? A tank who couldn't just peel the aggro away from a scrapper? Or a guy who kicks because it's the only way for him to feel like the leader?

I'm going with that last one.